A Lie is a Lie, Hallelujah
by whydowefall
Summary: ‘It was never supposed to factor into the equation that their actions would have consequences.’ Everything affects something or someone we love.


**Title:** A Lie is a Lie, Hallelujah  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary: **_'It was never supposed to factor into the equation that their actions would have consequences.' _Everything affects something or someone we love.  
**Fandom:** House  
**Pairing:** House/Wilson, Wilson/OFC  
**Spoilers:** Up through _'Needle in a Haystack'_.  
**Word Count: **1,983  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by David Shore and FOX, among others. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author's Notes:** Taking a few fandom clichés and hopefully making them whole again. Still can't write House's voice properly, but can I get points for trying? Also, at one in the morning, sometimes you really want to believe that scotch is spelled with a 'k'.

If you read, please be courteous and leave a constructive review telling me what you liked and what could be improved upon. Thank you for reading

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**_A Lie is a Lie, Hallelujah_**

_vision blue and blurry, falling angels in a flurry, spinning thru the empty room  
did you come here to dance?  
what's in your glass?  
do you feel better now?  
let it rain – ok go_

When he went to the hotel at night (though more and more, it was becoming early morning), Wilson barely had the energy to lean against the walls of the elevator for support. His knees would feel heavy (he would never admit to anyone that they actually gave out on him once) and his head would swim with the details of the day in dizzying slow-motion. There were never other people riding with him, already tucked between their changed-daily sheets, smelling of courtesy soaps, and for that he breathed sighs of relief that were soon chased with a shot of exhaustion (though more and more, it was becoming scotch as well).

The room was always tidy and the bed was always made and the mint on his pillow was always thrown right into the wastebasket, which was always empty. Sometimes, the urge to wait one morning for the cleaning lady to come, to see who delicately avoided the stack of papers on the cheap desk, to see who folded discarded clothing in a pile on the loveseat (but never in a creepy way), to see who placed that mint there day after day knowing it would never be eaten anyway; sometimes, Wilson remembered that he needed to save lives, and forgot the urge as he pulled the cord on the table lamp only to be awoken three, four hours later.

The catch-up paperwork from his absence in the department weighed on him like an anvil; when he thought he was caught up, he would find another rubber banded stack in another folder, and he would fold his hands over his eyes and breathe before pulling out his pen. The catch-up appointments weren't much better, though his fellows had managed to at least see a few of the regulars with moderate ease; for that Wilson was grateful.

The gratuitous bathroom products were never touched except to make way for his own expensive shampoo and expensive facial cleanser and expensive shower caps. None of the pads of paper bearing the hotel's logo, or the pens with the same, were used, thrown into the bottom drawer of the nightstand along with the bible. The free samples of a second-rate coffee were still lovingly placed by the coffee pot.

It was almost like he didn't want to admit he was there by using something that wasn't his own.

He wasn't happy in the hotel, but he wasn't unhappy either. It was better than the house he had shared with Julie; always empty feeling, even when she was sleeping a hand's width from him and snoring to wake the neighbors up. It was better than the couch in his office; Cuddy had spies who knew the nights when he couldn't be bothered to move from his nap at one in the morning, and she never failed to give him the look that dripped sympathy and confusion that he'd rather avoid.

It was better than House's couch; no House.

When Wilson pulled the blankets that smelled like starch up to his chin at night, he didn't dream; there was never any time.

* * *

There were no words the first time it happened. Wilson stood in the middle of his office, coat draped over his shoulder and keys in hand when House moved from the couch and kissed him; rough lips and forceful tongue and Wilson felt himself drop his set of keys to the carpet with a hollow, metallic noise.

When Wilson pushed himself away, palms against House's chest, there was nothing in House's eyes to betray his emotions. He nodded his head and walked away, leaving Wilson to pick up his keys and lock the door before going to his desk to start work for the day.

The second time it happened, there was no kiss. House approached him, and Wilson said, "No." They both regarded each other, Wilson with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and House with fingers gripping his cane until his knuckles were blanched; they both silently dared the other to react first.

House won, or lost, and Wilson turned on his heels toward the cafeteria to find something to eat. House watched him until he was around the corner, or at Wilson imagined he did, before limping back into his office to get the test results from his fellows.

When it happened for the third time, Wilson let himself be pulled in tight, House's hand on the back of his head and a forceful knocking of teeth, like they were middle schoolers. His fists balled at his sides as he responded, opening his mouth and letting House's tongue meet his own, and they both sighed when their bodies pressed together, chest-to-chest. The sound of House dropping his cane clattered in both of their ears, and Wilson asked, "Why?"

"Pushing you, remember?" Wilson stepped backwards with eyes wide and House sat on the edge of Wilson's desk to shift weight off of his bad leg. House finished with, "See how far you'll go" just as Wilson's clenched fist connected with his jaw, not that it meant anything, because House could just hide behind his Vicodin.

There was no fourth time.

* * *

The wedding was announced on a Wednesday. Wilson smiled at everyone and avoided House, thinking about the way Rachel's hair had looked as it pooled around her head like a halo that morning in bed, brown and smooth and flawless. She was in a fellowship in radiology, and her name was Rachel Aaron; she was the perfect Jewish girl his mother had always wanted for him.

When House finally found him in the clinic, he asked, "How long until the divorce?" as he walked past, dumping patient files into the outbox on his way to exam room three. Wilson didn't honor him with a response as he filled out a chart, the nurses shooting House the glares for him.

Of course, when Wilson asked House, days later in the elevator on their way out for the night, if he would be the best man again, House agreed. He said he would be glad to, with a smile, and they went to a small bar a few blocks from the hotel, celebrating Wilson's departure from the hospital before ten, a phenomenon to rival the Miracle of the Oil.

Things were like they always were, in every aspect of his life, except for the addition of Rachel to his hotel room and the addition of house classifieds to the coffee table in front of the television, under wedding invitations and envelopes and Wilson's discarded tie for the night, thrown off in a fit of passion; her laughs melded into moans, and they both forgot for the moment who on staff they should ask to the reception.

House and Rachel even got along in a way that House and Julie never had; he laughed at her jokes, and she realized that everything he said was a joke. They had dinner together, sometimes without Wilson when he had to work especially late, and House comment on how much happier Wilson really seemed; this didn't deter House, however, from keeping a calendar in his office with the day six weeks after the wedding crossed out in unhappy red ink.

Things were like they always were.

* * *

The divorce announced on a Saturday. It was a particular sunny day out, but Wilson spent all of it buried under paperwork, not all of it work related. House's calendar was off; it was two weeks before the angry red mark, so he congratulated himself on being early.

Everyone knew to stay away from him; some people just didn't follow through. House came into the office at five-thirty on the dot and declared that they were going to celebrate (celebrate what, was Wilson's question, but he didn't get an answer) at his place tonight.

Rachel had the house, the hotel with its mints and its sterile environment and its prepackaged coffee was long gone, and he was tired of sleeping curled up on the office couch and waking up to Cuddy's worried smile; he agreed, and House left to go and save a life.

At eight-o-three, House came back in and declared that Wilson should stop what he was doing and stand up. His iPod was in hand, and as Wilson stood up, House turned the volume up so it screamed through the ear buds, crackly and fuzzy, but audible, and House set it on the desk.

House's arms around him were warm and tight and unexpected; House wanted to dance to the pulse of the jazz piano, and Wilson obliged, forgetting how ridiculous they must have looked and how much pain House must have been in and the way Rachel had cried when she threw the wedding china at his feet yesterday morning.

The fourth time it happened, the time that wasn't supposed to exist, Wilson started it, looking into House's eyes before letting their lips brush. When House hesitated, he whispered, "Push me", and then they were hopelessly doomed.

They fell onto the couch, Wilson on top of House, on top of the good leg, mouths together and hands exploring, up under shirts and down into pants. Wilson was hard to House's touch; House was still limp and when Wilson looked up in confusion, he grunted, "Vicodin does more than make me not feel the leg."

Apologetic, he let House angle them just right and yank him until he came, all over the last of the ties he had left from when Julie was around, and both of them were grateful, in a way. They straightened up, and House left again, leaning a little more heavily on his cane.

* * *

Wilson showed up at House's apartment with a six pack of beer and a bag of fried chicken from the grocery down the block. There were no lights on, and no answer at the door, so he let himself in.

Nothing had changed since the last he had been there, except House wasn't lying on the floor in his own vomit and Wilson wasn't still remembering the way Julie's hair smelled on the pillow; now it was Rachel, and he wasn't sure it was better. The picture frames were all sitting with the same pictures, the books were still stacked in the same places in front of the bookcase, the dishes were still in the sink, though he hoped that they at least weren't the same dishes.

As he waited, he sat in front of the television, beer in one hand, remote in the other. Channel surfing in a dark apartment that wasn't his own was vaguely unnerving, vaguely annoying, and he wondered where House was; Wilson was sure that he had gone home not long after nine.

Commercial, commercial, cartoon, movie, cooking show, news report on an accident two blocks over involving a truck and a motorcycle, and Wilson was out of his seat before the remote hit the floor, batteries popping out and rolling away under the couch.

Red and blue lights on the melting white snow as he pulled up, and the police tried to get him to leave, but no he was a doctor and this man was his friend and what happened and where was the other driver, and House moaned from the stretcher as Wilson walked toward him.

"Ice patch. Leg hurt, didn't take Vicodin because I wanted-" He didn't have to say anymore as Wilson put a hand over his mouth. No more speaking, and House went into the ambulance to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, on Wilson's request.

It was never supposed to factor into the equation that their actions would have consequences; what he did was never supposed to break up marriages, what he did was never supposed to hurt House, what he did was never supposed to matter.

He got back into his car and returned to the hospital.

* * *


End file.
